Writers on Film

Icons of Cinema: Greta Gerwig   explores the career of one of the world's most celebrated movie directors and is available here . john Bleasdale's novel Connery is available for pre-order here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Here are links to the books we talk about Hurricane Billy:  https://www.amazon.com/Hurricane-Billy-Stormy-William-Friedkin/dp/B0G13YSCVB/ref=sr_1_1?s=books Mosby Confidential:  https://www.amazon.com/Moseby-Confidential-Arthur-Penns-Neo-Noir/dp/0986377082/ref=sr_1_1?s=books William Friedkin (Thomas Clagett):  https://www.amazon.com/William-Friedkin-Aberration-Obsession-Reality-ebook/dp/B0F2S9WMVH/...

Reflecting on Nicolas Roeg’s seminal film, Justin John Doherty's new book DON’T LOOK NOW AND THEN features hundreds of previously unpublished photographs and documents, offering a fresh glimpse into the making of a masterpiece. The ultimate love letter to “Don’t Look Now”, with contributions from those who made it and those who it changed forever. Buy your copy here . Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsW...

Tom Shone author of The Greengrass Papers talks about his best films of 2025 and biggest disappointment as well as his unique insight into the new Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg films which await us in 2026. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I talk about 2025. The books, the films, the festivals and the guests. I talk about writing Darkness Visible The Cinema of Jonathan Glazer and look forward to the publication of Connery the Novel as well as the writing of Connery the Biography. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I speak to Michelle E. Moore who along with Brian Brems has edited the first  collected volume of work on cult film director and icon John Waters, which offers a comprehensive study of his work as an important filmmaker and cultural force. Includes chapters covering important themes in Waters’s work, stylistic tendencies, his relationship to the art world, and interviews reflecting on the impact o...

How are David Lynch's films as much in dialogue with literary and musical traditions as they are cinematic ones? By interrogating this question, David Lynch's American Dreamscape broadens the interpretive horizons of Lynch's filmography, calling for a new approach to Lynch's films that goes beyond cinema and visual art to explore how Lynch's work engages with literary and musical works that have s...

Joseph McBride has been a veteran critic, a teacher, the screenwriter of (among others) Rock n Roll High School. He's acted for Orson Welles and campaigned for John F Kennedy. A fearsome intellect and a great film scholar, this is a mammoth episode for a legendary man. His new memoir/interview book with Danny Peary I Loved Movies But... is available here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company....

YouTuber Thomas Flight has amassed over 1 Million subscribers to his YouTube Channel and offers in depth visual essays on everything cinematic. He is also a documentary filmmaker and writes for many publications including his own Substack Seeing Through Film is available here . His YouTube channel is here . Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our col...

The western in all its forms is the subject of Jem Duducu's new fascinating book. Even while the frontiers of the Wild West were being fought over, its myth was being forged. Sometimes this was in the form of incredibly popular pulp novels, on others the likes of the hugely successful Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show that even toured Europe and delighted monarchs. By the turn of the 20th Century, jus...

Top author and friend of the podcast Tom Shone returns to talk about his new book The Greengrass Papers which gets up close and personal with one of the most influential film directors of our time Paul Greengrass. From The Murder of Stephen Lawrence through the Bourne films and Captain Phillips to his latest The Last Bus, we go through it all. The book is available here . Hosted by Simplecast, an...

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Arthur Penn's neo-noir thriller Night Moves, starring the late Gene Hackman, Alan Sharp's novel based on his original screenplay – out of print since its first publication in 1975 – is presented here in a stunning new paperback edition, with exclusive cover art by the legendary Tony Stella, an introduction by Matthew Asprey Gear (author of  Moseby Confidential...

Another chance to hear the episode on the Kraszna- Krausz Moving Image Book Award Winning Screen Deep by Ellen E Jones. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today I talk to Ellen E Jones the winner of the Kraszna- Krausz  Moving Image Book Awards 2025. The event at the Barbican to celebrate Ellen's win is on 27 October -  https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/imitation-of-life-12-with-introduction-reception Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertis...

Though it was not to acquire its definitive name and identity until the following year, the Giornate del Cinema Muto can date its first edition to 9 to 11 September 1982. Jay Weissberg is the current director of the festival. I spoke with James Harrison from South West Silents . And musician, dramatist and expert Neil Brand.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for infor...

Get the book here . The definitive, in-depth look inside the making of Alfred Hitchcock’s  Rear Window —the all-time classic of voyeurism, paranoia, and murder that became one of Hollywood’s greatest achievements and turned generations of viewers into “a race of Peeping Toms.” . . . Before the internet and social media offered voyeuristic glimpses into the lives of others, the acclaimed Master of...

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I talk with Tom Shone about Terrence Malick's first film Badlands (1973), a true crime drama that introduces a new talent and vision to seventies cinema and the world. You can buy the biography of Terrence Malick here The music is Camille Saint Saens - The Carnival of the Animals: Aquarium and is performed by pianos: Neil and Nancy O'Doan and orchestra: Seattle Youth Symphony, conducted by Vilem S...

Julia Seabaugh is a writer who has covered the comedy scene for years. She has written A Tight Twenty and Ringside at Roast Battle and has produced a new documentary on Marc Maron, of WTF Podcast fame called "Are We Good?" Find out more about her work here . Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Buy Caroline's book here . The Blurb: From the single ladies of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift songs to Phoebe Waller-Bridge's irreverent television series  Fleabag  (2016–2019) to as far back as Miss Havisham in  Great Expectations , the stereotype of the damaged single woman has long pervaded music, books, television, and Hollywood movies. Spinster tropes, witch burnings, and nineteenth-century diagno...

Buy the book here : Explore behind the scenes of the greatest monster movies ever made! What makes a great movie monster? Academy Award-winning make-up effects artist Howard Berger and acclaimed journalist Marshall Julius have spoken to dozens of film industry legends to find out. A celebration of monsters, monster movies and monster movie makers, Making Monsters delivers an illuminating, entertai...

For generations, Ed Wood has been known as “the worst director of all time.” This sympathetic critical study repositions the director of Plan 9 from Outer Space as a maverick independent whose work challenges the boundary between “bad” and “good.” The subject of a Tim Burton biopic, Will Sloan reappraises Wood as a more interesting and disruptive figure. You can buy his book here. Hosted by Simple...

One of my favourite film critics Bilge Ebiri from Vulture joins me to talk about Olivier Assayas' The Wizard of the Kremlin, Kathryn Bigelow's A House of Dynamite, and Kaouther ben Hania's The Voice of Hind Rajab. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nicholas Bell from IONCINEMA joins me to run down the films we've watched so far at the 82nd Venice Film Festival. We talk La Grazia, Frankenstein, After the Hunt, Bugonia, No Other Choice and The Smashing Machine. We probably talk about even more in this bumper Lido fuelled edition. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of perso...

Available HERE. Blockbuster box office. Critical acclaim and Oscars recognition. From Get Out and M3GAN to The Substance and Sinners, the horror genre is enjoying a glorious–and gory–golden age. Screaming and Conjuring details the films and frights that led to this extraordinary renaissance, from the release of the groundbreaking Scream in 1996 to the arrival of 2013’s The Conjuring, which spawned...